‘Green’ 3D Machines …the Color of Money?

For sometime now, terms such as “Being Green” &  “Green Collar Jobs” have permeated our headlines.  Much energy is spent, no pun intended, on reducing the environmental impact of most industries. Positioning & Machine Control is no different.

While an important and admirable issue, I can’t recall a single discussion where environmental impact was raised, much less pressed as a purchasing requirement for 3D machine control technology. I don’t believe this means that grading contractors are impervious to environmental issues.  Perhaps this is a case of “out of sight out of mind?” Or just maybe, the benefits aren’t being presented in the most consumable manner for grading contractors and other industries that reply on positioning. Consider ‘green’ being the color of money.

Recent studies are raising awareness that ‘green‘  has value as a purchasing requirement, not just for the environmental impact, but the dollars saved.  A study by the Allen Consulting Group conducted for CRCSI in Australia reports that use of high precision GNSS in agriculture “reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Reduced fuel usage in controlled traffic farming has external benefits through lower levels of greenhouse gases being emitted (such as carbon dioxide) relative to traditional farming practices.”

Lets translate this into currency.  Another study found that productivity gains with potential cumulative benefit of $73 to $134 billion over the next 20 years - in agriculture, construction and mining alone! (Higgins, 2008)

Folks this is good business whether you hug or cut down trees.

More to come …

-Randy